The Feministing Five: Emily Heller

Kind of a cool interview

And they said feminists have no sense of humor!

Whoever started the rumor clearly hasn’t seen Emily Heller perform. A New York transplant from San Francisco, Emily now brings her specific brand of funny to the East Coast. And as the warmup comic for W. Kamau Bell’s show on FX, she now joins the ranks of Totally Biased writers Hari Kondabolu and Janine Brito as part of the Feministing Five alumni. She performed on the third season of John Oliver’s New York Stand Up Show on Comedy Central and was named one of Comedy Central’s Comics to Watch at the New York Comedy Festival. She won Rooftop Comedy‘s Silver Nail Award for up-and-coming stand-ups and named one of the “7 Funniest People in Town” by 7×7 Magazine. She also has a new series up on Above Average where she plays a tarot card reader for the likes of Kal Penn, Janeane Garofalo and Kenan Thompson, among others. Clearly, Emily Heller proves that feminism has a damn good sense of humor.

To be clear though, Emily’s comedy can be enjoyed by anyone. Joking about the freedom to yell obscenities when the Giants won the World Series, getting an ultrasound of her non-pregnant uterus while waiting for her adopted baby to arrive, and the idiocy of people thinking everyone in San Francisco is gay would make anyone LOL. What makes Emily great though is that she identifies as feminist in her stand-up and pokes fun at it. She acknowledges stereotypes, while satirizing their ridiculousness. She makes feminist theory light-hearted and jokes about using feminism as an excuse to be “lazy and disgusting” with her looks. Yeah, she had be with that last one.

While I understand the rumor of humorless feminists, I don't know any. As far as comedians, I dislike far more than I like, not just because of persistent misogyny, but because too often cruelty, and I mean real cruelty-not to be mistaken for irony-- is used. And that's just lazy ass, unfunny bullshit to me. Comedians who can use humor to make social statements, or can cast a jaundiced eye on certain aspects of the human condition and joke about it, I usually like.

(I'm laughing already about the "getting an ultrasound of her non-pregnant uterus while waiting for her adopted baby to arrive")